A letter sent by President Mehmet Ali Talat to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has been published as an official UN document.

The letter dated 10^th of October 2006 criticizes the Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos for his intransigent attitude towards solving the Cyprus Problem and reiterates the Turkish Cypriot Side’s readiness to sit at the negotiating table for a lasting solution to the Cyprus problem under the aegis of the United Nations.

Full text of the letter is as follows:

I have the honour to refer to statement made by the Greek Cypriot leader, Mr. Tassos Papadopoulos, at the sixty-first session of the General Assembly in New York on 19 September 2006.

I have read the text of the speech with great dismay. In the statement, Mr. Papadopoulos outlines his vision for Cyprus and his own paradigm for the future. Undoubtedly, the crux of his speech is where he asserts that "ethnic origin, political equality as defined in relevant United Nations resolutions, and cultural and religious diversity should be safeguarded but not at the expense of fundamental rights of citizens and the functionality and efficiency of State institutions". One would expect Mr. Papadopoulos to be aware that in the twenty-first century, the state cannot be held paramount to ethnic, cultural and religious diversity and cannot be used as a pretext to suppress diversity. Only in the extreme regimes can one support such a stance, which is clearly against contemporary thinking. In the context of Cyprus, this stance is, at the same time, an obvious attempt to do away with the established United Nations parameters for a settlement on the island and represents an ill-intentioned effort to undermine the principle of political equality. Whereas the international community and relevant treaties have endorsed the political equality of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, Mr. Papadopoulos is insistently talking about minority rights in a very anachronistic and restrictive manner. Needless to say, ethnic, cultural and religions diversity and functionality of the state are of complementary nature and do not contradict each other. The functionality and efficiency of a new partnership in Cyprus and the fundamental rights of its citizens can only be guaranteed through full respect for and adherence to the principle of political equality of the two sides, and not though numerical majority imposing its will on the numerical minority under the pretext of fundamental rights and functionality of the state.

If the vision and paradigm of Mr. Papadopoulos is based on the assimilation of the Turkish Cypriots into the Greek Cypriot society (osmosis), then this is clearly a premeditated recipe for the continuation of the division of the island. In conjunction with his call for the rejection of the Annan Plan and his call for the unification of the island through "osmosis", it is hardly convincing that Mr. Papadopoulos is truly committed to a bizonal, bicommunal federation in Cyprus based on the political equality of the two sides on the island. He aims to change the agreed parameters of a settlement in Cyprus in line with his "osmosis" policy, by asserting that "the territory, people, society, economy and institutions" should all reunite in a settlement, pointing clearly to a unitary state and not a federal solution.

It is unacceptable that Mr. Papadopoulos expects the General Assembly to forget the fact that it has been burdened with the Cyprus problem since 1963, and tries to depict the Cyprus problem as one of "invasion" and "occupation" only since 1974. He tries to conceal the ousting of the Turkish Cypriot founding partner from the 1960 Republic of Cyprus; the Greek Cypriot atrocities perpetrated against Turkish Cypriots, which necessitated the deployment of United Nations troops in Cyprus in 1974; and the grave violation of Turkish Cypriot human rights and their subjection to living in enclaves between 1963 and 1974. In a similar manner, Mr. Papadopoulos conveniently forgets that the Turkish intervention was a result of the military coup instigated by Greece in 1974. He also overlooks the fact that none of the Security Council resolution on Cyprus refer to the rightful intervention of Turkey as "invasion" and the subsequent presence of Turkish troops in Cyprus as "occupation".

Mr. Papadopoulos should be reminded that the Turkish Cypriots, while having suffered since 1963, in terms of humanitarian and human rights consequences, are still living under isolation and disenfranchisement, despite their expressed will for the unification of the island. Furthermore, given that it was Mr. Papadopoulos himself who called on the Greek Cypriot people for a resounding "no" to the Annan Plan, which, in your words, was not a mere blueprint but the solution itself (S/2004/437), he bears the sole responsibility for the continuation of the status quo, and his effort to blame it on Turkey is not convincing.

It has been clearly stated by you in your report mentioned above, as well as by the European Council in its decision taken on 26 May 2004, that urgent action should be taken to lift the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots. The fact that Mr. Papadopoulos makes a mockery of such efforts, by claiming that the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots is a myth, only serves to alienate him further from the international community. It should be stressed at this point that, income per capita on the Greek Cypriot side is almost twice that of the Turkish Cypriots living in the North. It is due to the isolation that such disparity exists between the two peoples on such a small island. It becomes abundantly clear that such a mentality does not only aim at the subjugation of the Turkish Cypriots politically, but economically as well.

Again, in his speech, Mr. Papadopoulos claimed that the Annan Plan was rejected by the Greek Cypriots, as it had not provided for the reunification of the island nor addressed core issues and key concerns in a satisfactory manner. Asserting that a settlement plan, finalized by the Secretary-General, who was mandated by the Security Council with a mission of good offices to facilitate the unification of the island, did not provide for unification but rather separation is absurd, an insult to the United Nations, and disrespectful of the goodwill efforts of all those who worked tirelessly to bring about a compromise plan for the unification of the island. Such well-known allegations of Mr. Papadopoulos have been duly answered in your report on your mission of good offices in Cyprus (S/2004/437) and hardly need further elaboration. At this point, I would like to remind you that during the discussions held on the Annan Plan between the two sides at The Hague on 10 and 11 March 2003, Mr. Papadopoulos is on the record as having stated that "he was prepared to do likewise" (S/2003/398). In a similar vein, in a letter addressed to you on 17 December 2003, he stated; "I reiterate my firm commitment to engage earnestly in substantive negotiations on the basis of the Annan Plan … I also wish to assure you that the approach of the Greek Cypriot side to such negotiations as well as our attitude within their framework will move within the philosophy and concept of the Annan Plan … It remains our position that, if any resumption of the talks is to be meaningful, both communities must indicate that they accept your Plan as a basis for further discussions". Thus, it is obvious that he paid lip service to the Annan Plan in order to secure the European Union (EU) membership of the Greek Cypriot administration as the "Government of Cyprus" and negotiated in bad faith, deceiving not only the Turkish Cypriot side but also the United Nations, the EU and the whole international community. It should also be underlined at this point that the Security Council had given its full support to the plan in its resolution 1475 dated 14 April 2003, in which it stated that it: "Gives its full support to the Secretary-General’s carefully balanced plan of 26 February 2003 as a unique basis for further negotiations, and calls on all concerned to negotiate within the framework of the Secretary-General’s Good Offices, using the plan to reach a comprehensive settlement".

Mr. Papadopoulos is also distorting the facts concerning the issue of the missing persons. Although he acknowledges that there are "positive" developments on the matter, he conveniently misleads the Assembly by referring only to those who went missing in 1974, and not to Turkish Cypriots who went missing between 1963 and 1974, whose fates are also being investigated under the mandate given to the Committee on Missing Persons.

Mr. Papadopoulos needs to be reminded that in the efforts to solve the Cyprus problem, his counterpart is and has always been the Turkish Cypriot side, and not Turkey. His efforts to take Turkey as his counterpart only serve to hinder any dialogue on the island and thus weaken the prospects of a solution. In keeping with this policy, he even focuses his accusations on Turkey in a vain effort to solicit a response, and thereby effectively get rid of the Turkish Cypriot side and establish Turkey as his main counterpart.

Turkey’s full support for the Annan Plan, which was praised in your report mentioned above on your mission of good offices, as well as the Action Plan it proposed for the simultaneous lifting of all restriction imposed on the North and the South, and the rejectionist stance taken by the Greek Cypriot leadership on both occasions, is a clear indication that Turkey, as a guarantor country, is continuously taking positive steps to help the two sides to bring about a settlement in Cyprus, while the Greek Cypriot side, on the contrary, is pursuing maximalist policies at the expense of contradicting the founding principles of the EU such as compromise and cooperation.

It is also disturbing that Mr. Papadopoulos has been exploiting the humanitarian crises caused by the situation in Lebanon in order to promote his cause. We were shocked and dismayed during the crisis in Lebanon that individual countries seeking the assistance of the Turkish Cypriot side in the evacuation of the refugees from Lebanon were told by the Greek Cypriot leadership that if they used Turkish Cypriot assistance in the matter, their use of the Greek Cypriot ports and airports for evacuation purposes would not be permitted. The Greek Cypriot leadership did not refrain from pursuing its anachronistic policy of isolation Turkish Cypriots even at the height of a humanitarian crisis.